David Laws, the former Cabinet minister, will be suspended from the House of
Commons for seven days for breaking parliamentary expenses rules.

He is expected to be ordered to apologise to Parliament and pay back tens of thousands of pounds after an investigation that resulted from a Daily Telegraph report last year.

It is the most serious punishment imposed on any parliamentarian by fellow MPs following the expenses scandal and is likely to block any return to government for Mr Laws.

The Prime Minister had hoped that Mr Laws, who was popular among Conservatives as well as Liberal Democrats, would return to the cabinet soon, but this has now been ruled out.

It is understood that Mr Laws has been found guilty of six breaches.

Mr Laws, 45, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury for 17 days last May. He resigned after The Daily Telegraph reported that he had claimed more than £40,000 to pay rent to James Lundie, his boyfriend, despite MPs having been banned from paying rent to family members or partners since 2006.

This newspaper also disclosed that he claimed hundreds of pounds a month to cover bills for utilities and maintenance. In total, Mr Laws claimed more than £100,000, despite providing virtually no documentary evidence in support of the claims.

After new rules were introduced demanding that MPs produce bills or receipts to back up such claims, Mr Laws’s claims dropped sharply. An initial investigation by police is understood to have been dropped and passed to John Lyon, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.

Mr Lyon has spent almost a year examining the claims and is understood to have concluded that Mr Laws broke the rules. Yesterday, a committee of MPs met to discuss an appropriate penalty.

Last year, David Cameron said that he hoped Mr Laws would return to government “soon”.

Yesterday, after it was disclosed that Mr Laws had been found guilty of numerous breaches, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Cameron now only hoped he would return “one day”.

“What he has said in the past – and the Deputy Prime Minister has also said – is that he hopes that one day David Laws will be able to return to government,” said the spokesman.

After a tightening of the rules relating to expenses claims in 2008, Mr Laws submitted a rental agreement to the House of Commons, signed by him and Mr Lundie. The agreement appeared to be a standard contract.

“The price for the use of the bedroom is £950 per calendar month,” it stated.

Mr Laws, a former banker, did not disclose to the House of Commons that he was in a relationship with Mr Lundie.

Later in 2008, the House of Commons specifically requested that Mr Laws submit receipts for council tax and utilities.

Mr Laws instead sent in another copy of the existing rental agreement, with the council tax and utility costs filled in by hand.

In a handwritten note to a parliamentary official, Mr Laws said: “I trust that this will be sufficient to allow for payment.”

Sources close to the Lib Dem MP insisted that Mr Laws kept his living arrangements secret because he did not want his homosexuality made public.